Mrs. America's Gloria Steinem Is Still Fighting For Equality Today

Steinem was a pioneer of the second wave of feminist movement in the '60s and '70s, and continues to be a spokesperson for feminism and equal rights.

Now 86, Steinem is still busy as ever. Here's what you need to know about the trailblazer in real life.

Mrs. America, the new FX on Hulu mini-series that premiered April 15, tells the story of the Equal Rights Amendment from two perspectives: the feminists who were spearheading the movement, and the amendment's most fervent detractors.

Playing Gloria Steinem, the so-called face of second-wave feminism, 40-year-old Australian actress Rose Byrne faced a major challenge: How could she bring a new, but honest, perspective on a celebrity?

"How do you portray this woman who’s so iconic and symbolic and well documented and obviously very active and with us?" Byrne told journalists during a press conference in April. "She's so well known. How do you bring a fresh eye into that?"

Donning Steinem's iconic blond-streaked tresses and tinted sunglasses, Byrne physically embodies the iconic figure. However, Mrs. America portrays Steinem as we've never seen her before—behind-the-scenes and vulnerable about her position as the "face of a movement."

Set over the course of 10 years, Mrs. America tracks Steinem's career as a writer, thinker, and equal rights activist, as well as her own shifting relationship to her work. "When you’re playing someone with that amount of profile and dedication to their cause, what’s the cost on that character? This dedication to the movement. What did it cost her?" Byrne asked.

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Mrs. America's eight episodes capture a pivotal decade in Steinem's life(from 1971 to 1980)—but there's so much the show can't cover about Steinem. That's where we come in.

Before watching Mrs. America, this is what you need to know about Steinem and where she is now.

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Gloria Steinem had an unusual childhood.

Gloria Steinem came into the world in the middle of the Great Depression. She was born to Leo Steinem and Ruth Nuneviller of Toledo, Ohio on March 25, 1934. But they didn't stay in Toledo for long. Leo, a traveling antiques salesman, moved his wife and two daughters around the country. She didn't attend a traditional school until she was 12.

When Steinem was about 10, her parents separated. Steinem's main role became taking care of her mother, who suffered from mental illness and had frequent hallucinations long before Steinem was born. Per Steinem, she was "afraid to be alone," "could not concentrate on reality long enough to hold a job," and "could rarely concentrate long enough to read a book."

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Steinem later credited her childhood for her career in activism. “It’s difficult for a neglected child, because it isn’t that there’s something wrong—it’s that there’s nothing. You experience it as a lack of reality, as invisibility. So I set about making myself real by being useful,” Steinem told Vanity Fairin 1992.

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She once went undercover as a Playboy Bunny.

This is possibly the most legendary Steinem story of them all. After returning from India, Steinem moved to New York and began work as a journalist. One of her splashiest and earliest articles was an exposé about the contraceptive pill published in Esquirein 1962.

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But the assignment that put her on the map came in 1963 when she went undercover for a month at New York City’s Playboy Club for an article in Show. Steinem, then 28, wanted to learn what working in Hugh Hefner's famed club was really like—and what better way to learn that than to be a bunny herself?

Steinem eventually published two long-form articles formatted as first-person diary entires about her time posing as 24-year-old "Marie Catherine Ochs." The incident became an essential part of Steinem lore and cemented her reputation as a "femme fatale every man in New York seemed to be in love with," as Vanity Fair put it.

She was open about her abortion experience.

Steinem fought for reproductive rights, partially because of her own experiences. When she was 22, she sought out an illegal abortion in London. Years later, when Steinem was 81, she dedicated her memoir to the doctor that performed the procedure.

The dedication read, "He said, 'You must promise me two things. First, you will not tell anyone my name. Second, you will do what you want to do with your life.' Dear Dr. Sharpe, I believe you, who knew the law was unjust, would not mind if I say this so long after your death: I’ve done the best I could with my life. This book is for you."

Steinem only became vocal about her experiences in her mid-30s, however, after attending an abortion speak-out when writing an article for New York magazine.“So I sat there as a reporter...listening to women tell their stories that were tragic and ludicrous and every human emotion all wrapped into one, and suddenly I thought, ‘Wait a minute, I had an abortion,'" Steinem recalled to Terry Gross on Fresh Air.

She co-founded Ms. magazinein 1971.

Today, Ms. magazine publishes articles about life in 2020—and it's all possible because, back in 1971, Steinem co-founded the publication alongside colleagues like Dorothy Pittman Hughes, a Black feminist, and Patricia Carbine. Pitman Hughes and Steinem later toured the U.S. in the '70s, speaking about the intersection of race and gender.

Steinem told Harper's Bazaar she was scared when the magazine first launched."What if the magazine failed?" Steinem said. "It would have damaged the movement, and it would have been my fault."

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The first issue of Ms. featured articles about sex bias in the English language, welfare and women's rights, and a first-person essay about one housewife's feminist awakening, among others. Ms. was sold in 1987.

She's had many high-profile boyfriends.

Steinem's dating life is depicted in Mrs. America for a deliberate reason. At the time, the media was fascinated by Steinem's status as an unmarried woman. "What were the reasons—or maybe there weren't any reasons at all—why Gloria didn't marry during the time at a time when it was still very unusual for a woman to stay single in her 40s?" creator Dahvi Waller told journalists during a press conference.

In Mrs. America, Gloria is in a relationship with Franklin Thomas (played by Insecure's Jay Ellis). Thomas is based on a real businessman and philanthropist who was the CEO of the Ford Foundation for 17 years, and a proud father of four. Steinem called Thomas “the longtime love of my life, and best friend” in an interview with The New Yorker.

"Gloria was the only character who wasn't married, so, there is a more rich romantic life to be mined there. We wanted to portray women enjoying having sex and being sex positive," Waller added.

Steinem has been linked to many other notable men, including director Mike Nichols, lawyer Stan Pottinger, and the gold medal Olympic decathlete Rafer Johnson. Her relationship with real estate developer and publisher Mort Zuckerman in the 1990s made headlines.

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She wrote about her unhappy relationship with the millionaire in her book, Revolution From Within:"I reverted to a primordial skill that I hadn't used since feminism had helped me make my own life—getting a man to fall in love with me. The problem is, I had to keep on not being myself." They broke up after four years together.

She and Betty Friedan had a tense relationship.

Betty Friedan, author of the groundbreaking book The Feminine Mystique, and Steinem were both prominent figures in the feminist movement. Despite their shared commitment to the cause, their own relationship was fraught as Mrs. America explores in multiple episodes.

"Gloria was not her favorite person," Byrne told journalists. "There’s a real humor around it in the show, which I think is always just invaluable. It’s very entertaining to see how different they are."

She wrote a biography about Marilyn Monroe.

"Gloria Steinem's biography is a quiet book; it has none of the sensationalism that has colored other purportedly serious books about the film star, Norman Mailer's in particular," the New York Times review said of the book.

She survived breast cancer.

In 1986, at the age of 52, Steinem was diagnosed with breast cancer. Back in the '80s, breast cancer death rates were 40 percent higher than they are today. However, after a lumpectomy and radiation treatment, Steinem was pronounced cancer-free.

"When I first heard this diagnosis, first, I thought, ironically, oh, so that's how it's going to end, you know? And then I thought to myself, as if it was welling up from the deepest part of me, I've had a wonderful life. And I treasure that moment," Steinem said on Fresh Air.

Mrs. America is hardly the first time Steinem's life has been given the big-screen treatment. The first fictionalization came in the 1985 made-for-TV movie A Bunny's Tale, in which Kirstie Alley portrayed Steinem's time at the Playboy Club in 1963.

This year, not one but two works about Steinem made it to the screen. The Glorias, a biographical film based on Steinem's 2015 memoir, premiered at Sundance in 2020. Julie Taymor directed the film, which stars four actresses playing Steinem at different ages—including Julianne Moore and Alicia Vikander. Byrne plays Steinem in the FX series Mrs. America.

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And don't forget this episode of Drunk History, which takes a comic approach to Steinem's life.

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She married Christian Bale's father, David Bale.

Steinem had never been interested in getting married—and then came David Bale, a passionate animals rights activist (who also happened to be Christian Bale's father). They met at a fundraiser and married in 2000 when Steinem was 66.

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“I didn’t change. Marriage changed,” Steinem told theNew Yorker. “We spent 30 years in the United States changing the marriage laws. If I had married when I was supposed to get married, I would have lost my name, my legal residence, my credit rating, many of my civil rights. That’s not true anymore. It’s possible to make an equal marriage.”

David died in 2003 at the age of 62.

She's still working today.

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Where is Gloria Steinem in 2020? She's still working tirelessly, of course. At 86, Steinem calls herself a "hopeaholic," and is not giving up her torch. Steinem makes regular public appearances and comments on current events, from the #MeToo movement to the Trump presidency.

"I’ve been using my torch to light other peoples’ torches. Because the whole idea that there’s only one torch is part of the reason why we’re so f*cked up. Everybody needs a torch," Steinem said during a 2020 summit in New York.

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